Extreme Overclocker and Computer Hardware Aficionado

I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff floating around on the internet on how to overclock these new AMD Laptop APU’s. This content consists of mostly a few youtube videos, and a handful of helpful forum posts. So I am taking it upon myself to compile all this information to be helpful to those of you looking to get more performance out of these chips.

Disclaimer and Dangers: Normally laptops are not meant to be overclocked whatsoever. Doing so may also void your warranty on your laptop. Therefore the following information is provided at your OWN risk.

Many problems arise from laptops simply not being able to deliver the power being pulled by the chip if it is overclocked to very high speeds. This may cause problems with the laptop itself, or kill power adapters. Be careful.

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Introduction

AMD introduced their A series laptop APU’s midway through 2011. These chips contain a quad-core CPU with a dedicated class integrated GPU on an all new 32nm process.This makes them a powerful option for the casual gamer, at a cheap, affordable price.

What is unsaid by all the elegant marketing is the overclockability of these APU’s. The CPU portion, being based on the same architecture used in Phenom & Athlon II CPU’s it comes as no surprise that these chips can overclock.

If you are here reading this then you are probably saying, “Okay, well how do I overclock it then?” Well here you are:

Important Essentials:

Here are some things you need to know before we begin.

1) These chips are based on the stars K10.5 architecture, and therefore share many similarities to Phenom II & Athlon II. This means that all overclocking properties of those chips, apply to these APU’s. That means a few things:

-These chips scale with cooler temperatures, they hate heat
-These chips do not always scale with more voltage (which is also a big no-no in laptop overclocking anyways)
-They perform more or less on par with Phenom II/Athlon II at equal clockspeed

For more of these properties, check out my guide for Phenom II OCing. Click here.

2) This is a mobile platform, therefore they differ slightly from desktop versions of this APU.

-These chips can take more heat, and run hotter by default than desktop processors. This is attributed to the weaker cooling system implemented in a laptop.
-Don’t expect a desktop level overclock out of these machines. I have myself hit a wall for full load use of 2.6GHz.
-On my laptop, I have yet to find a way to overclock the GPU, RAM, or NB. This is expected from an OEM laptop, where things are not meant to be overclocked in the first place.
-Do not use overclock settings while using the battery, unless it is an extreme undervolt. You will just wear your battery faster.
-With the APU’s, the GPU is also on the same die and cooled by the same heatsink. Therefore it is very important to watch the temperatures, and not load the chip too hard.

Programs You Will Need:

K10stat – This is the program that will do the magic. This allows you to change multipliers, dividers, and core voltage for the CPU.

CPU-Z – Optional, but great for monitoring clock speeds of cpu, and checking other specs of your computer.

Prime95 and or equivalent – This will stress test your APU to see if it is stable.

Part 1: The Overclocking

It is advantageous to note that these APU’s come with a very high stock voltage. What does this mean for us? It means we can overclock and undervolt the chip at the same time. This allows us to keep heat down, but also overclock to get more performance.

If you open k10stat and go to the “P-state” tab, then you will see numerous items. You will see FID which is your multiplier, DID which is your divider, and CPU voltage for your core voltage. You will also see a list of P-states (B0,P0,P1 …etc). The B0 p-state stands for your turbo boost setting. P0 is your standard stock clockspeed when under load for all the cores. The APU will jump from P0 to B0 for only one core at a time under load. The rest of these P-states are utilized depending on the load of the chip or if it is at idle etc.

Therefore if you want an overclock where the CPU speed will not change at all, you have to adjust all P-states to the desired overclock. If you don’t, the APU will still jump between p-states depending on the processor load. This can also be used at an advantage, so that you only adjust the top P states and not all of them, so at idle you still stay cool and use less power, but under load get the performance of an overclock. Example (DO NOT USE THESE SETTINGS AS THEY MAY NOT WORK FOR YOU):

The best way to create the best set of P-states with your chip is to experiment with different profiles and stress testing them along the way. Setting a low voltage Pstate 5 and 6 can save a lot of battery power!

Continuing on…

A good starting point for an overclock is at around 2.3Ghz and 1.1-1.2Vcore. Every chip is different, but these are good starter settings. From there you can tweak in desired increments (I recommend 67MHz multiplier increments, done by using a DID of 1) and adjusting voltage using the drop down menus. Remember to press apply after each change. The max FID is 31, so adjust your DID accordingly. Only increase the voltage if your cooling can take it. The max recommended temperature at full load is 85-90C. If you go over this, your system may shut down your GPU to prevent overheating. You may have to restart your computer.

For my A6-3400M I managed to obtain an overclock of 2.350GHz @ 1.1125Vcore stable. The stock voltage of my chip was 1.3250Vcore for 2.3GHz (Turbo Boost). Usually the chip only runs at 1.4GHz 1.0625Vcore with turbo boost kicking in on one core at a time. Therefore I increased the voltage ~5% for a clockspeed gain of ~59%. Now do you see why these APU’s are winners?

To get this overclock, I used k10stat to manipulate some settings. I proceeded this by setting a DID of 2 (Divider which breaks down each multiplier step in 50MHz increments), and a FID (multipler) of 31. This has to be done for every P-state to ensure your clockspeed won’t jump around (unless of course you only feel like changing your turbo boost p-state). I changed my voltage to 1.1125Vcore. I monitored my CPU speed in CPU-Z to confirm my changes.

UPDATE: If the settings/clocks you are trying to apply are not changing anything according to CPU-Z, then try enabling “Clock Control Function”. This can be done by right clicking on the K10Stat tray icon and clicking on this option. Here is a picture of that:

Update 2

Be aware that in some cases there is a multiplier bug when going beyond the max stock multiplier. This causes cpuz as well as k10stat to keep showing the clock speed increasing when in reality it is not doing anything. Make sure your OC is working by checking for performance boosts.

Part 2: Stability Testing

This part of the guide is very wide open. As we are not changing ram, HT ref clock, or NB speeds, there are many different stress tests that can be used. I am a folder therefore I stress tested my overclock by running an instance of VMware SMP folding.

For average users out there, I recommend running Prime 95 for at least 3 hours. Watch carefully for temperatures during this run. It would be acceptable to run up to 100C during a Prime 95 test, just not for longer than a few hours.

If you stress test with games, remember that the APU also has a GPU on board, which will add heat if you are doing 3D game rendering. So once again, watch the temperatures.

As I mentioned above, I utilized folding as my stress test. Folding is a very accurate real-world test for me, as it is the only application that will load my processor to 100% and heat it up quite a bit. Here is a screenshot of me folding stable at 2.350Ghz w/ 1.1125Vcore for 9 hours.

And that does it folks. If you are not happy with your achieved overclock after this process, you can repeat the process again, being more aggressive with voltages and clock speed.

I will once again stress, please watch the temperatures. It is easy to overlook such an important factor on a mobile platform.

I hope you enjoyed the guide and get some great performance from your Llano APU!

No, it cannot go past a certain multiplier. The laptop llano chips are downclocked versions of the desktop chips, so their multipliers can be pushed up to desktop levels, but there is still a locked multi.

Hey Slappa, I copied your settings just as u have them in this post but nothing changed in the cpu-z, k10stat, core temp. I have toshiba satellite l775 with the amd A4-3300m processor running @ 1.9 and 4 gigs of ram. I am new at running a amd processor and overclocking could please give some me advice

Thanks for the help that worked. I am overclocked at 2400 right now 2 questions 1st how do I set k10 to run these all the time and 2 do happen to know where I can read up on overclocking or any good tutorials. Right now I am running the prime95 for the last hour and the temp is staying right around 67*C

Thanks for the info I am getting ready to run prime again because I boosted the cpu up to 2.7 gig @1.137core volt and I am running speed fan 4.45 to keep it cool last night I ran intel burn in and it only got to 70*c so I may try 2.8 before running prime thanks for the registry settings will try them in a little while question can u overclock the fsb to make your memory fun faster this whats in it now DDR3 1333MHz Each memory slot can hold DDR3 PC3-10600, DDR3 PC3-12800

As far as I know, there is currently no way of overclocking the bus clock. Besides, in a llano laptop you would not want to do this. This is because the GPU is also linked to the bus, and would overclock as well. This would add too much heat.

Thanks for the encouragement went to 2.8 and prime thru out an error so I backed it back a little to 2.66 g hz and ran prime for a little over 4 hours and it found no errors and if I remember temp got up to about 81*c could u explain the c v a little only reason I am asking is because I am wondering if I increased the voltage would I be able to push it up to the 2.8 mark I think the max c v is 1.4 when prime errored out I was at 2733 and cv was 1.1375. and the rest was just as u have it pictured on
here.

by the way great blog and glad I found it and thanks again for all your help.

thanks that did work out for me. I decided to try and push it higher and I am currently running it at 2.933 and a cv of 1.2625 ran the intel burn in and the temp got up to 83*C. and that was with the speed fan program running. if there is anything else u would like to teach I am open to learn I am a machinist by trade but I enjoy working on computers too

Nice guide, thx. I found also how to oc GPU using Sapphire TRIXX, but I didnt try it now. I just try to set 2350/1.115V at all states and it works fine. __http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/601808-k53ta-best-deal-ever-could.html

Hey thanks for checking out my guide. You are referring to the dedicated GPU though right, because as far as I know, the GPU inside of the APU is unclockable. It is attached to the system bus. You are overclocking the 6650M on the motherboard. Together the 6520G and 6650M crossfire to make the 6720G2

You should see very noticeable gains from overclocking the APU. Not as much on a desktop CPU, but these mobile llano’s are clocked pretty low for stock (non-turbo boost power states), so you should see a pretty large leap in frame rates.

Great guide, i have a new lappy on the way with an A8-3500m inside. Never performed an overclock but from what im reading the A8 handles it well. After reading that the A8’s speed can be underwhelming, im excited to see what kind of power i can get out of it.

Hey, I just ordered a very good laptop for the price of 460 dollars after shipping (a8-3500m/6620g APU with 512MB dedicated DDR3 for the GPU and 4GB DDR3 for the system memory) and am excited to read of your results on overclocking this APU. The a8-3500m has a clock of 1.5GHz with a turbo-boost to 2.4GHz at factory settings. I am very cautious of moving the voltage on a laptop (especially since it will be used with decent load 8-12 hours a day every so often) and am wondering what you expect I may find the max stable clock to be without raising the voltage (or maybe very little if the temperature change is small enough)

Thanks for the great post, definitely put everything one would need to know about this OC clear and concise in one location.

That laptop is a great deal for the price, a better deal than mine was.

Overclocking these APU’s is quite simple. We are actually managing to decrease voltage while also overclocking. AMD set extremely high unnecessary default voltages. If you download K10stat, the program I outlined in this guide, then you will be able to see all the P states of your APU. From there you can lower the voltage and probably be able to push your CPU up to run at the advertised turbo speeds on all the cores 24/7, as opposed to running 1.5GHz which is slow. You are fine on running any voltage you like as long as you can keep temps low under load.

Slappa, can you recommend any tools to overclock the dedicated GPU on my laptop? My dedicated GPU is the HD6470M which is a little underwhelming. I want to OC it because im not getting as much of an FPS increase while gamin after overclocking my A6-3400m

Hi, very nice indeed to finally see someone giving these APUs their chance!
This article was most helpful and quite well detailed!

Everywhere I’ve looked until now only goes about “the llano staying behind the i3 for the same price” and stuff… but I believe overclocking this chip might be a solution to get the decent gpu AND a CPU comparable to an Intel one for an affordable price, since actually undervolting it allows overclocking.

The model I found is an Asus with A6-3400M, but it’s still around 600$ (more options and bigger screen than yours). So before I buy the thing I’d like to know if it will overclock.

So here comes my question: is this overclocking capability linked to the chip itself or will I have some problems using a brand different from yours?

Second, does anyone know how to overclock the GPU? Is that even possible, or interesting in any case? The laptop seems to have two GPU’s, one linked to the CPU called 6520G, the other one is another named HD6650M. Are they to be overclocked together or not?

Last but not least: is this hybrid crossfire thing with the double GPU only working? Does it make any difference in terms of performance? Or is it just better to let the 6650M do the job?

I know some of my questions might look out of topic, but there’s so few information about this on the web, I thought you could answer some of them.

So far there hasn’t been a brand that has had much variance. I know with my HP, the max voltage allowed is 1.3250Vcore. I don’t know if it is just my setup, or limited like this for all the mobile APU’s. I know the ASUS models can overclock. You are most likely going to be limited by the chip itself and for temperature reasons before the brand comes into play (unless the cooling is crap with that certain manufacturer, but I don’t know how much worse you can get than my HP).

As of right now, the GPU onboard the APU cannot be overclocked. However, the 6650M can be overclocked, and yes, running in hybrid crossfire mode should give you a performance boost. I do not have experience with this yet though. I would do some searching over at notebookreview.com forums, as they have managed to do successful overclocks while running hybrid crossfire mode.

I’m convinced now >>>> buying the laptop, it should arrive next week.
If I have any comments or results to show I’ll post again.

I don’t know how I’ll cool the thing yet, though. I have no docking station with fans. I’m just discovering the “penny mod” tweak, not sure I’m going to do that with my lack of experience.
Everything depends on the cooling capabilities it will have.

Okay the laptop arrived! Working great as expected: running 2.35 Ghz at 1.1125 V most of the time. The prime95 test runs I ran usually go up to 70-75 °C and it looks like stabilizing.
I’d like to reach 2.6 Ghz for a daily gaming usage: what voltage should I try first?

Hi,
I really like you post and I want to aski something about this HP with a6-3400. I am looking for one to buy and I wanna know if the processor is limiting the video card, because the laptop comes with 6750 with GDDR5 and I se a Hp with Phenom N970 with 6550 GDDR3 and I want to know wich of these laptops is better. With the overclock of the Llano can a go near to the phenom in performance. Wich one of these 2 you think is a better piece processor+video card, a6-3400+radeon6750 or Phenom N970+6550. Thanks.

With the overclock, can I reach the performance of the phenom or something near? I se some reviews and the benchmark of the phenomis about 6800 and the a6 around 4800. With the overclock of the a6 you known what benchmark the processor can reach?

At the same clockspeeds, the A6-3400M is almost on par with Phenom II. If you can get it to 2GHz or above you should be fine for games. You will only find yourself limited in games which heavily depend on the CPU (example Skyrim) but this is expected with most laptop CPU’s. You will see the bottleneck go away if you can overclock the CPU further, and you will most likely be able to play most games fine.

This is very hot for stock settings. I recommend not exceeding 90C for long periods of time. You should be able to perform a slight overclock though. The best way to get stable settings is to test yourself. Every chip is different so I can not simply tell you what to set. You can go off my guide as ballpark figures, but you will probably exceed 100C temps. Temperatures also cause instability not just lack of voltage.

Test if your processor fails Prime 95 at a certain speed and voltage, either lower the speed or increase the voltage. However do not run over 90-95C for a long time.

No more are you the only one with a mobile APU real pic as I have just finished taking my Acer 5560G-SB448 apart to get to it to remove that.. crispy dry half playdoh half cement type thingy of a “thermal paste” Acer used.. and replace with Arctic Silver 5, on the APU, GPU, chipset. 5c drop on load, 2c on idle.

It was doing 2.4GHz (un-gated)stock @ 1.0875v VID capping at 81c, now that the paste has burned in a little the difference has gone from 5c load to 8c so it only capped at 73c, 1.075v VID was almost stable but core 2 would fail several hours in (1.0875v is 24 hr Prime95 stable), trying 1.075v again and so far its gone way longer than it ever did before cause of the better heat transfer as I suspected. So far I seem to have a very good A8-3500M compared to all others I am seeing for the speeds attained with X VID or vice versa.

If no one knows, they throttle at 93c w/ CPU + IGP full load or 95c when just CPU full load (100c TJ max variants).

That is an excellent chip you have there. Your cooling must far exceed the cooling in my laptop. I’m going to mod it soon and hopefully I can see similar results. I need to tear it down and repaste it again. When I did a fresh re-paste I was getting 75C full load at 2.3GHz and now it has gone back up to around 80-85C.

They throttle at 93C ? I’ve had mine up to 100C with no performance decreases (CPU load only)

Turns out 1.075v is stable, 24 hours. The 100c TJ max ones do, your A6 is 115c TJ max so if it scales the same then 108c is when yours should start throttling, CoreTemp is accurate at core speeds as when the throttling occurs it forces down to 800MHz with it’s respective VID (overridden to 0.675v for me) till it drops about 4c then goes back to the regular clock, can feel the instant exhaust heat difference so its for sure happening.

What is your notebook model? Hopefully whe UEFI bios modding starts up we can have modified bioses for fan speeds and for K10Stat’s functionality + timings in bios, I would love to see what the IMC can do in terms of clocking and undervolting.

im getting ready to buy an asus k53ta with the AMD A6 3400 @ 1.4ghz stock; HD 6720G2, and 2GB stock ram…..
settled on buying this system once i heard of its performance potential after OC…..i am a newbie to OC’ing……i have been trawling the web for info on the subject. on the one hand there are forums like the NBR forum “K53ta- best deal ever (could be)”……which are overwhelmingly for OC’ing the llano…..while there are many other forums which seems to flat out disapprove against even the thought of overclocking a laptop…..

im confused…..is it that dangerous to OC a llano laptop…..or is it that these people have no idea about the capabilities of the llano chip? cos in case of an intel processor, i would agree with them…..but i dont know what the capabilities of llano are…….

im planning to do a modest OC upto 2.1ghz with some UV…..so i am just curious, what is the core temp at max load in the stock a6 settings of 1.4ghz….?

and the model of k53 available over here in asia has only 2gb stock ram……is it better to get a 2gb ram upgrade to enable dual channel for the iGP, or will a 4gb alongside the stock 2gb work equally well? because i might upgrade to 8gb later, but for now, the max i can afford is a single 4gb stick.

just another inconsequential question? are/were you active on the K53ta thread at NBR.com? i think i spotted you there in one of those 239 pages…..(yes i spent a lot of time going through that thread!!!) and i think i see a few other names from that thread here as well…..small world maybe….

and thanks for all this info on your site man……this is one of the most comprehensive and concise site yet on the topic……way to go!!!..

More ram will be better as the 6520G in the APU uses system ram. Overclocking the laptop is not dangerous as long as you keep temps down. Max temps at load depend on your laptop. Mine has crappy cooling so it can run very high. Just don’t go over 90C for long periods of time and you should be fine.

Before al the things I read on the internet and considering opinion of many sites and forums (including this) I choose to buy the a6-3400 with Radeon 6750m. I will instal some games, I already instal PES and it looks very nice and runs smoothly, and now I wanna try games who will need more power. I wil run a prime test to see what temps my HP is going in stock and I tell you. Thanks for your support.

hey man, I have OC`d my A6 3400m 1.3GHz To 3.0GHz .. I have done in to 3.3GHz, but I just keep it on 3.0 all the time it is awesome.. is there anyway to make it faster ?? my A6 3400m is 1.4125V so what is the best clock speed?

Hey slappa, I overclocked my asus k53ta from 1.4ghz to 2.53ghz and i just blue screen everytime i put it to 2.6 even though my temperatures are super low just sitting on the desktop at like 50 degrees?…i guess system automatically does that to protect itself, but i was wondering what voltage would get me the best performance with the 2.53ghz?

Hey Slappa I have a quick question, but first off I wanted to tell you that this is one of the clearest step-by-step tech guides that I have seen, so thanks for that!
Now, I just bought a Samsung laptop with an a6-3420m for a pretty sweet price ($400!), and before I started overclocking it, I wanted to make sure that the method you have detailed above will work with this version of the processor.

It should absolutely work for any A4, A6, and A8 mobile series sabine (llano) processor as they are all based on the AMD K10 family of processors. Hence why the overclocking tool we use is called K10stat :).

I hope you get a good speed out of the machine. I too got my A6 based laptop for $400! Great deal.

Thanks for the quick reply! And that’s what I thought, but I just wanted to be sure. I just ordered 8gb of RAM today, so once that arrives I’m going to start with the overclocking. I’ll be sure to let you know what I get out of it!

Great info, I do have some questions and hope you can clear up
I just picked up a new up dv6-6135dx with a8-3500m
1) on core temp the speed reading is much higher than the cupz reading.
Core temp 2994-4791 while CPUz 1514-2395
2) on your oc is there a reason you did not go higher on b0 while leaving your p1-p6 at 2.3?
3) in k10 the stock range DID 1 at b0 to 4 at p6 and on your setting all of your DID set at 2 is there a reason why you use 2 on all of them?

The stock is currently set to b0 fid20 did1 @ 1.325 p1 fid14 did2 @ 1.0625
By following your post I guess I can set everything to fid20 did1 @1.25 range?

I overclocked my HP DV6 w/ A6 3400M to 2.8ghz with no throttle down clock so it stays at 2.8ghz. i raised my windows cpu score from 6.5 to 7.1 by doing so and my cpu benchmark is almost 50% higher. I will say i dont run that clock speed all the time and i also made a underclock profile when i need max battery life i underclock it to 800mhz. I will try 3.0ghz and see what happens.

Ok i actually was able to overclock to 2.9ghz and it will fluctuate up to a bit over 3ghz. I tried going to 3ghz clock and it runs but just running windows experience makes it blue screen and reboot. with 2.9ghz my cpu benchmark raises a tad bit except one of the cpu test actually dropped a little but the rest went up a tiny bit. wouldnt feel confident to actually run program this high though. from stock clock to 2.8ghz though it is like a whole different laptop. running 2D benchmark does net higher scores but 3D benchmark shows no differfence in score but odd thing is i playing crysis on high settings with 8x AA stock and its not even playable. i mean 5FPS max. lol but for some odd reason at same settings at 2.8ghz it actually playable. wierd considering 3d benchmark shows no difference with benchmark and even running crysis benchmark shows no difference between stock and overclock. i will say running crysis on those setting with 2.8ghz did have my temps at 80-85C and made me nervous and was waiting for it to go blue but never did. I think 2.8ghz is the safest max for my laptop. i ran windows experience deal at 2.93ghz and it gained .2 on the score. so stock clock windows experience cpu rating 5.8… A 2.8ghz overclock jumps to 7.1 and then 2.93ghz gets a 7.3 and stock clock vs 2.93ghz gains a 50%+ increase in cpu benchmark… PS. If anyone is reading this and thinking they wish they could do this but cant, think again. This is the first time I have ever overclocked anything in my life and succeded.

Okay the laptop arrived! Working great as expected: running 2.35 Ghz at 1.1125 V most of the time. The prime95 test runs I ran usually go up to 70-75 °C and it looks like stabilizing.
I’d like to reach 2.6 Ghz for a daily gaming usage: what voltage should I try first?

Nice article.
One small question that I have is how can I use a faster RAM with this system. Like in my laptop I would like to use 1600MHz DDR3, (I currently have 2GB 1333MHz which I intend to replace with 2x4GB 1600MHz) but 3400M has a max memory rating of 1333MHz. So in this case how would I go about doing that, since the bus cannot be overclocked? I overclocked my C2Q desktop a few years ago, but I think the process is entirely different for the laptops!

I decided I would not overclock this laptop.
Anyway, I overclocked and boy am I glad.
Thanks for the guide.
Now I’m probably gonna go get some real thermal paste applied and maybe even a heatsink mod because I’m addicted after seeing the game and video encoding performance take a huge jump. :(:)

Hello,
Does anyone have any suggestions of what is the best setting for an AMD A4-3300M APU?
My normal clockspeed is 1.9GHz with a Boost state of 2.5 GHz…Also does anyone know what is the minimum voltage for a 2.5GHz and a 3.0GHz?
Please Reply…
dying to make this work like out of the box… :'(

I just found a voltage that worked so I might be able to lower voltage but dont really feel like tweaking with that right now. I only use my overclock and underclock when I need it. ie: games, encoding and traveling. Other than that I leave it at stock. Although I rarely use the 2.93ghz overclock because the 90c temps make me nervous. Thats just used for impressing people. lol

Don’t feel like routing through the gazillion comments so I’ll mention it, since the blogger seems active:

With old K10 CPUs, CPU-z would show the MHz changing when FID was changed in K10Stat even beyond the multiplier limit. It would NOT actually change the clock speed though, because if it did I’d be typing this on my 5GHz RM70.

To prove that this is not happening here as well, has anyone gone beyond the stock multiplier with a stable voltage that would never crash?

“To prove that this is not happening here as well, has anyone gone beyond the stock multiplier with a stable voltage that would never crash?”

I’m exhausted so I may be mistaken in your question, but it’s an interesting one.
It DOES overclock. For sure.
0
But whether K-Stat will let you choose a number the CPU doesn’t actually get along with and fool CPU-Z, I don’t know. I’m not brave enough to run the heat anywhere near what I’ve read is ok. I’m coming from a Macbook Pro that liked to run over 90c WITH quality thermal paste, so those days are behind me. :)

I can say for certain the speed gains are occurring commensurately with the increments made, but I let CPU temperature and Prime95 errors decide when I’m not longer going to take the speed higher or voltage lower.

For what it’s worth, real world performance is absolutely occurring up the 3ghz mark and very much in line with the numbers displayed for my A8-3500M. My interpretation of real world performance is an immediately notable improvement in frame rates of CPU-heavy games, encoding my videos, Of course the Windows Index hitting 7.1 from 6.6 was there even if that’s probably not a satisfactory measure.

And to report on my own experience, 3ghz works for “turbo” mode, so I scale back to 2.8ghz.
3ghz on four cores turned the heat up to 85 degrees seconds after starting a stress test, so 2.4ghz is my “normal” mode limit for the time being.

The overclocking is real. If it was a matter off fooling cpuz then our benchmarks wouldnt be improving. running crysis with overclock makes a big difference. I will say that clock speed displayed in core temp is wrong. core temp says im running 5 to 6ghz. lol I actually played crysis at 2.93ghz on all 4 cores that i set to stay at 2.93 and not downclock to 1.4ghz at all. i did this for about 3 hours waiting for it to crash and it didnt. at 2.93 it does fluctuate past 3ghz but very briefly. i can make a 3ghz setting because it wont let me set the voltage any higher and i get a instant blue screen and reboot. if anyone doubts that it doesnt make any difference i will be happy to send u a copy of my screenshot with my before and after benchmark or if u want i have screen capture software and can upload a video of crysis at stock clock versus my overclock so u can see the difference.

Just as a comment and a thank you, after reading this guide (and educating myself in the process!) I can confirm that I managed to overclock my new K53TK from 1.5GHz (2.4GHz Turbo, that never seemed to kick in) to a static 2.6GHz in Gaming.

My 3DMark 06 score went from [7547] to [8408].

My Windows Experience Index score for the CPU went from [6.8] to [7.2].

For the overclock in K10stat, I have the FID set to 10, DID set to 0, Frequency set to 2600, and CPU Voltage set to 1.2500v (which is the lowest undervolt I can set it to that remains stable).

The current maximum temperature reported by Core Temp is 82C on full load. It WILL go slightly higher, but I don’t want to risk the temperature getting too high.

For fun, I tried to see if I could get it over 3.0GHz, but it just fills the display with artifacts and then blue screens every time, so… never mind. :3

I got myself a K73 (for the bigger screen), with an AMD A6-3400M apu inside.
Working great as expected: running 2.35 Ghz at 1.1125 V most of the time. The prime95 test runs I ran usually go up to 70-75 °C and they looked like stabilizing around these temperatures (room t° were around 20-25 °C).
I think I’ll go for a cooling pad as well.

I’d like to reach 2.6 Ghz for a daily gaming usage: what next voltage should I try first? Until now, I’m running 2600 Mhz with 1.2000 V but I get blue screens from time to time.
Interestingly, these occur when I set to the new frequency. Once this step has passed, it usually runs well for the next few hours. I experienced some blue screens while ingame, though.

Because of the voltage bump: if you are in a low P state of your processor and apply your new profile, you increase very quickly the voltage from say 0.8 V to 1.275 V and increase the frequence instantaneously. The clock and the voltage never increase at the same exact time (we talk about micro/milliseconds) and the voltage itself takes time to stabilize to a new voltage.

This leaves some room for a short time where the voltage is too low for the speed you just applied (because clock change is instantenous and voltage change takes some time) and you computer crashes (usually a blue screen on windows).

Try again by creating a new profile with speed = 1.4 Ghz and voltage = 1.275 V . First, you apply this profile, and then apply the other one with speed = 2.3 Ghz and voltage = 1.275 V.

Good day, I would be very happy if you explained to me why my laptop Lenovo IdeaPad Z575-A6 (59-312293) When I open the core temp, then I tg max. = 100 * and all but I 115 *. Explain please, what could be wrong?

You know, I think the best bet is to step down until you get testing errors in Prime95 or whatever.
I’ve heard various reports on voltages working out at a given speed, just as chips don’t all clock up the same reliably.

Hey thanks for checking out the guide. This is a little late for a reply, but hopefully it will get to you anyways. Coretemp reads weird for me sometimes too so that is just a bug and there is nothing to worry about! The speed boost sure is nice isn’t it? Cheers

My laptop’s AC adapter is kaput! I had noticed when overclocking to 2.8 for gaming the little brick would get super hot. I cannot prove that overclocking wore it out, but I’m guessing the little 90 watt adapter just gave up. Nothing else plugged into the same surge pro is dead, and there is no physical damage.

Maybe it was a fluke and a flaky PS. But if I burn up another one then we’ll know. Just food for thought.

In a lot of cases when running laptops outside of specs this is a potentially huge issue. A laptops power delivery system is sometimes barely satisfying a CPU at stock. Throw the over clock in and you can see where issues arise. That is a bummer but at least you can always grab a new adapter!

I’m getting weird readings from CPU-Z after clocking the system with K10stat. After a reboot, the clock numbers look like they should as per K10stat, but after about a few minutes, I restart CPU-z and notice my bus clock is half of what it’s supposed to be, dropping my clock rate by half. Is this a misreading or is something seriously wrong?

i’m having the exact same issues as Hexrune,. with CPU-z dropping the core speed to a max of aboyt 1.5ghz. according to K10Stat i should be on 2.4ghz. it is correct as i start the Pc, but after about 15 mins, CPU-z reads incorrect.

I love this guide!! It worked perfectly on my A6, but I have a problem. When I shutdown, restart or even close the 10kstat my cpu-z and AMD overdrive still show that my system is still overclocked and the cooling fans are always on which could lead to a bunch of problems in the long run. I like the speed n all but constant overclocking is not good right? So how do I stop it from overclocking constantly. Thanks :)

Hey sorry for the late reply. First and foremost I’d recommend against using and overdrive. It is a neat app, but it tends to mess around with too many settings and it sounds like it could be causing your problems. K10stat by itself should not save settings unless you set a profile yourself and set it to automatically set when windows starts.

If its running constantly at 2.3 then it may cut down the life of the chip. However as long ad it is stable and kept at cool temps then you will likely see no difference and the chip will last as long as you need it to

Thanks for the reply. That’s too bad! Unfortunately there is no easy way to accurately monitor temps to 100% accuracy. (Even the software may be off by 5C. Also, Once it gets past 85C you may began to see instabilities. I just found with my setup that 90C was the Max it would run fully stable. Not all chips are equal in electrical properties therefore some may crash at lower temps than others.
Crashing however does not mean damage is being done to the chip. It is usually just a thermal shutdown or the laptop can simply not handle the increased power delivery to the chip as the power systems are not designed to run past the specified tdp.

Yeah, but what is to hot? Mine crashed really, it died I guess, no screen no nothing, I send it back to Asus maybe they can fix it. But what do you mean by to hot, 85 degrees is less than 90, so I kept some room and it failed. No blame, I took the risk, but I won’t try this again, what did I do wrong? Or is this just bad luck?

i tried these settings for all states and it seems to run fine
fid 31 / did 2 / freq 2350 / volt 1,1250

tried running primark for about half an hour and it worked fine but decided to give d3 a go and see if i got any improvements, didnt feel like it and when i looked CPU-Z only show a core speed of 1500mhz

i tried to enable clock control and got it checked with both k10stat running with my “overclock profile” and CPU-Z running but it’s still saying 1500ish mhz (1497-1513 flucturating)

do you have any idea what might be wrong?
or perhaps you know of another program i could use to validate my true CPU speed?

i think this should be able to pull more then 30ish FPS (with drops if there’s alot of mobs and such) in Diablo 3 with everything on lowest if the clocking was working correctly, dont you?

lastly, is there a way to disable the built in GPU to ensure that you run only on the dedicated GPU? i know some people have had similar problems with for example Nvidia gt 540 with optimus / intel HD 3000 where the more powerful graphics units doesnt kick in as intended while gaming.

what are you on about holy crap man we have the same specs but your crossfire ready and i only have just the 6520g, you should have no problems runing diablo on high settings. for disableing i dont think you can but im not sure but you can look in your CCC at crossfire or in your bios.

Ok today I noticed my 2nd AC adapter for my Gateway A8 laptop is not working. I have not even overclocked in a little while. Either Gateway/Acer has some QA issues with the OEM AC adapters they are using (Hi-Pro), or even occasional overclocking to 2.8 is just too much for these little 65 watt adapters. In my last post I put 90 watt, but I was mistaken, these are all 65’s.

I’m not going to push 2.8ghz any more. The next adapter replacement comes out of pocket.

hello slappa i have asus k53ta with a6 3400m im cloking it at 2350mhz 1.0625v do you use a laptop cooler if you do which cooler do you have and is it any good im thinking to do a case modification to my lap but i dunno if it useful or not do you have any experience with those can you explain me

Thanks for the information slappa. I have a concern with the laptop i’m thinking of buying and that is: the cpu is labelled as AMD A6-3420M however it doesn’t mention any details of the gpu other than “Integrated (graphics supporting 224mb)”. I wondered because the AMD A6 is APU technology does that mean no matter what system it’s in, it has an AMD Radeon HD 6520 built in even though it fails to mention it? Sorry that it’s a bit off topic, I just don’t want to buy this laptop and be disappointed

Hey everyone. I have a gateway nv55s05 with AMD a8 3500. I had AMD overdrive set to overclock to 2.3 ghzand was working great until a few days ago. Now suddenly I am getting blue screen of death and game crashes to the desktop, usually preeded by major graphical artifacts. I thought it was temperature related with the summer heat, but after installing core temp and testing in cooler temperatures its crashing even as low as 57 degrees C. It crashes even when I try to watch video clips now. I even underclocked to see if this would alleviate and no still no good. I tried using beta 12.7 catalyst drivers and no change. I was using the 12.6 or 12.5 prior(however catalyst still reports as 12.3) I’m about to see if I can send it back, but its out of warranty and was a remanufactured unit. Anyone have any thoughts?

I agree with Kaz, use K10STAT for overclocking per the guide. Don’t use AMD overdrive. If there is a newer bios go for the update, if not reset it to default. See if you can remain stable at stock settings.

Not all laptops are equal and I have seen one where the heatsink was not mounted properly which caused the unit to overheat quickly when pushed hard. If you’re out of warranty and technically inclined, you might consider taking it apart and cleaning/remounting the sink with good thermal compound. But not everyone is up to taking a laptop apart.

2.3ghz on 1.0625v with a temperature maxium of 85celsius. just wondering that does increasing voltage increase performance even if you don’t increase the clock/core speed or whatever:P no it doesn’t? if i’d find out that the minium voltage the cpu runs on should i put thevoltage value just a notch higher than the minium to be on the safe side? i actually got less temperature on 3 hours of prime than 10min of bfbc2. i put the overheat protection of core temp to 85 celsius just to be sure i don’t wreck my laptop:P btw my core temp says ”tj. max: 100 celsius” is that the maxium heat my cpu can take? in normal browser use i’ve got the cpu running at 800-1200mhz. mostly a stable 800mhz:D does it matter what divider you use?

sorry for the bad grammar , and the ”noob” questions because this is the first time i oc and everything i know about overclocking i’ve learned today…

overclocking increased performance in cp demanding tasks and games like bfbc2. crysis 2 is a bit better but ran before oc on very high with full res already but bfbc2 didn’t play well with settings on low with full res.

hey slappa thanks for the guide it help alot i have the A6 3420M built by samsung got it stable at 2.4GHz at about 80C highest it went on prime was 82 had to use 1.175volts how many volts do you think i would need for a OC of 2.6?

-Be aware that in some cases there is a multiplier bug when going beyond the max stock multiplier-

I’ve been using OCCT to stress test. But it is giving me a strange error. it says my speed is downclocked -41% back to the original 1500mhz.
do you know if this is a similar bug or if it is actually not running at my overclock settings? do you know what happens to be the stock multiplier for the laptop llano version A6?

Hey there, seems everything is clear with the processor overclocking!
Have you got any ideas on overclocking the hd 7670m graphics card? since it`s not the integrated 6520g (or how it`s called) maybe heating it up a bit won`t hurt that much? I am trying to improve the overall gaming experience,any ideas on how and what should I do?

ive recently installed gentoo on my k53ta(it took 3 days to clean all bugs and trying many kernel configurations:)) im at 2.5ghz with Turion Power Control app and i realized that in linux my temps never get above 72 celcius i was getting to 86s in windows at 2.53 ghz im really shocked to see that difference tomorrow ill try go 2.8 to 3.0

Hi I’m getting a computer with a AMD Dual-Core A4-3305M Accelerated Processor(2a)(3a) its a HP I was wondering how far I can go with it and if I over volt it a bit I can go farther i m a complete noob with computer modding first computer lol but I have modded my android installed a custom ROM and over clocked it and undervolted it if that helps lol but thanks in advance and maybe give me a noons guide too over clocking lol

There’s a part where it says: The performance of the processor part depends on the used cores. Due to Turbo Core, a single core can be clocked up to 2.3 GHz leading to a performance of a AMD Turion II P540 (2.4 GHz 2MB L2 Cache). Using all four cores, the performance is in the range of the Phenom II X4 P920 (1.6 GHz 2MB L2 Cache). THEREFORE, on average a Penryn based Pentium T4500 Should be comparable.

Then I wanted to know, if doing an overclock, and take it to 2.4ghz you would a single processor or each of the four who has? And if the laptop would still be stable at 100% without any drawbacks?

And in case you can only carry a single processor to 2.4ghz, what about the other 3 have?

And if in doing so worsened or improved their performance significantly?

The laptop is used for different things, surf the Internet, share files, be they documents, images, etc., and may be used to reach music programs like Guitar Ring

And yes please, could explain step by step, to make the overclock?, Ie show me all that I have to change and that I must put in place!

Not sure if you still read this, but I have a Toshiba Satellite L755D with the amd a6-3400m. I have set P0 to 2300mhz at 1.1125v, and the B0 to 2733mhz at the stock 1.3250v, leaving the rest of it alone. Running fine, games run much smoother. Before i’d try to stream League of Legends at 360p and i’d get about 30fps. Now i can stream it at 480p and run at 50-60fps. Very nice improvement. Temps haven’t gone above 80*C using prime95. Thanks so much for this.

I managed to oc to 2.6 and stress tested it by gaming, the max temp it reached was 95C when loading the game but once the game started it lowered back down and the temps stay around 80-88C, is it relatively safe to run at those temps for hours at a time?

Love the Guide. Thank you so much for the primer on overclocking/undervolting the AMD A-Series. About five months ago I stumbled upon a Gateway NV55S15U with an AMD A6-3400M, new for $400.00. I absolutely LOVE this machine. I have it set permanently to P0 1.7GHz (0. 9750 v) & B 2.7GHz (1.2250v) – and it runs cool(+/-45c) and stable . It plays Skyrim just fine. When I need it to “go to eleven” I set it to P0 2.8GHz (1.2625v) & B 3.2GHz (1.3125v) – and when torture testing it with Prime95 at these high settings it never exceeds 83c. I never have occasion to operate it at these settings. Every game I have play just fine at the P0 1.7GHz setting. Skyrim or Fallout 3 are the newest games I have. So… if anything good comes out in the next year or two I should be just fine.

Setup is a A4-3300M with only the integrated GPU
Here are my findings:
i can’t go past 2.6ghz on 1.3 volt otherwise i get the ‘101 BSOD’ that means that the VCore needs increasing, as i look in this blog i see people achieve much higher clock speeds with a lower voltage, that’s kinda strange,maybe i have a monday morning cpu LOL

Here are my settings and this is enough for me.
My laptop is Asus X53Z with A4-3300M – 6480G video and 8G ram
This values are stable and very safe for me.
Tested for more then 30min and the temperature stopped at 62-Celcius with full fan power and room temperature of 21-24C.

Yes, but at 2500 or 2533mhz the temp of cpu it’s getting 70C and for 100mhz it’s worth it, you know.
For me it’s enough and I’m glad at you it’s fine.
The trick is I never saw the Cpu using the boost mod – B0 …and I do not understand why!
it’s something I should do or haw I can see if it’s working the boost mode.
Cheers

70C ‘s not that high for a laptop cpu mine is 4 core and gets 83 C with that setting at 83 C fan gets %100 speed and keeps the temperature there in my computer which is asus k53ta turbo boost is not like intels its working but doesnt keep clock there too much it helps some you can check it disabling boost with k10stat and benching cpu with a single threaded benchmark like super pi it should make difference but not good as intels boost its broken or sth

oops sorry and dont care that temperature consumer grade cpus can resist even 170C temperatures solders can take 200C but thats not good for them my big brother is an electronics engineer and have experience with that

Great blog! Been reading a few of your posts as I have an A6-3420M and its very hard to find helpful, descriptive information with screenshots too.
I OC’d following your instructions as a guideline, and while I may not push it quite as much as I’ve never tried any form of overclocking before, I’m still getting wonderful performance gains!

I will continue to read your various posts and have bookmarked your blog. The confidence I have received cannot be stated enough.

I thank you a lot, cause I found your page by luck and still, managed to make it! Unfortunately, despite I know some things, I need suggestions in the way of making the overclocking.

I have a Toshiba Satellite L 35D-212 (AMD 2.1ghz dual core, AMD 3100 graphics card, 4 GB RAM). How much you think is it safe? And how much should I put the volt for each?

I can also put a normal mini-cooler (the one we use the summers), so I would need some advice even in this situation. But also without, is it just the heating I should be looking for, or also something else?

This are the settings; I still can not make the CPU to go for BOOST and i do not understand why!? I don’t think that the voltage is to low; if i disable k10stat it’s going it self to turbo boost to 2.4ghz.

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I had the same prob.. U can improve performance of games by simply using the main GPU.
You can set SWITCHABLE GRAPHICS MODE to FIXED in bios settings and tour laptop will only used the one GPU at a time.
That way you can easily switch to main gpu (which is stated as “High performance GPU” in the AMD catalyst control centre) when gaming
N
easily switch back to integrated GPU (which is stated as “Power saving GPU” in the CCC) when watching movies ,browsing etc.

AMD Dual graphics mode is pretty bad on laptops.Gives me a pretty bad performance drop when its enabled so avoid using it at all cost for gaming!!!

Use only the main GPU for gaming.
Using the main GPU might lower your battery performance so if not gaming switch to integrated GPU and vice versa.

And your CPU can be overclocked easily too as shown by the author(same Llano series AMD CPU) and YES it will improve performance in CPU intensive games.

BTW once you choose the FIXED option in bios
—- “Configure switchable graphics” option will be replaced by “Configure AMD PowerXpress” when you right click your mouse..Use the 2nd option to seamingly switch bettwen main GPU and Power saving GPU. No need to open the main AMD control centre screen (damn slow).

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hey guys, I was wondering what about underclocking the memory ?
for example, can I buy a 2133Mhz memory (specifically this: CMSX16GX3M2B2133C11 ) and have it automatically(right?) underclock down to 1333Mhz (since this is the max that my Lenovo IdeaPad Z575 laptop AMD A6-3400M CPU(aka APU) will support) and thus, it would have lower CAS Latency than a/the stock ram (which is 1333Mhz CL9-9-9) ?
In other words, would the 2133Mhz be downclocked at 1333Mhz? and will its CL be 9 or less? if it will be 9 because that’s jedec standard(i think), well I assume there’s no way(yet) to change it to be less… but worth noting that the 2133Mhz is rated CL9 at 1600Mhz so lower than that would likely go lower CL than 9 …
corrections & confirmations are welcome and much appreciated.

hey hey, I managed to get a ram it’s an 1833Mhz CL11 Kingston which worked out of the box with my Z575 at 1333Mhz CL8-8-8-23 (hope I remember the last number correctly) which is better than the CL9 I would’ve gotten from a ram designed to run at 1333Mhz max. So, yey! :)
Also, on my Z575 I’ve found some voltages, I’ll probably post a new comment here when I’m done experimenting however… I notice that something is keeping it at 200Mhz (if I use this at P6 state) and will prevent it from ever moving from this state… I’m planning on uninstalling ati ccc and see if it was doing that or something else, I’ll see.

Hi there, I have an HP Pavilion DV-7 ,built of a6-3400m with AMD Radeon 6520g Integrated Graphics card 512mb Memory, 8gb Ram. I would like to ask if how far can I overclock my laptop of a lesser temperature. Maybe you could help me coz I really want to speed up my CPU, FPS during the game drops, I OC it with random figures i saw here in the forum, But what matters most is the stability, My device cant stay that long coz the system shuts automatically due to too much heat. Please help me, I can settle for 2.0 ghz clock speed. Hope I can get a response from everyone. Thanks in advance. Peace.

Hi. I have acer aspire 5560g-7809, A6-3420m quad core (1500-2400Mhz Stock).
I did change all B0-P6 states to 2400Mhz@1.1750v in K10stat,
ran prime95 @80-85 Degrees max for hours.
As I understand, turbo only put 2 out of 4 cores to 2400Mhz from stock.
So now all 4 cores running at 2400Mhz with lower voltage, I’ve managed to do a good performance boost, even windows experience index for cpu went up from stock 6.7 to 7.1